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Even if you are receiving a strong response rate from your campaigns, you could be wasting precious marketing budget on unresponsive zones. These are areas you have been consistently targeting and have had zero response over the last few marketing cycles. If you are not analyzing campaign results by geography, they can be easily overlooked. Instead of pouring money into unresponsive zip codes, you can use data analyses to identify them and optimize your marketing strategy.
Where are your responders coming from?
In the busyness of moving from one campaign to another, it is easy to look at overall results, make a decision, and move on. However, there are many wonderful gems of useful information if you look beyond the overall response rates. One of those important pieces is knowing where your responders came from.
Highlight those zip codes and neighborhoods and ask what makes them unique? What do they have in common? Are there any natural barriers preventing people from reaching your location like a river or a mountain? Not only can data scientists analyze who your customers are, but they can look at the neighborhoods they come from and identify common data points about those areas.
Are there any areas that haven’t responded?
Once you’ve looked at which areas your customers are coming from and mapped them out, you can easily identify zip codes you have been targeting that have had no responses. If you have had no responses after one mailing, you might want to try a few more rounds before crossing them off. People may need to get acquainted with your brand, see a different offer, or receive it during another season.
However, if you have consistently targeted an area for several mailing cycles and still have not received a response, remove it from your list. Some people are never going to respond no matter how many times you reach out, so it’s better to know and reallocate your resources to more responsive zip codes.
How do the unresponsive zones compare?
Once you’ve identified those areas where no one seems to be responding, compare that audience to your current customers. What differences do you see? Compare the geographic data to your highly responsive areas and see how the two compare. What do learn about them? This valuable information will help you focus your efforts on the best prospects and territories for your company.
Market Penetration – What other areas should you explore?
After you remove the unresponsive zones, you can either put those funds into your highly responsive areas, or you can look for new zip codes that share similar data points as your high response zones. A market penetration study will show you where you have saturated the market as well as highlight other areas that look like your stronger performing zip codes, so you can make data-driven decisions about where to expand.
Study Your Responses
In order to optimize your direct mail campaigns, it is important to study your response data. This will let you know who is and isn’t responding, so you know how to focus your marketing efforts on those who are most likely to make a purchase. You can also make informed decisions on where to remove records or areas that are underperforming. Data analytics not only identifies responders, but it also helps you narrow your focus and reduce marketing waste – waste you may not have even realized was there.
If you want to learn more about geographical studies or campaign response analyses, let’s connect. Our team enjoys helping our clients create more efficient and targeted campaigns, so they can increase their return on investment and grow their business.